


A Blank Canvas

by undeadpsycho13



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, i promise the story is more than just this, there are also a bunch of OCs, these's tags are hella bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-30 02:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8514391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undeadpsycho13/pseuds/undeadpsycho13
Summary: In the beginning, it was just him.  Him and the stars and the wolves.Waking up in the middle of the wolf house, Octavian had been introduced to a new life, a new world.  He didn’t know.  He never got to know anything.  It was only his mother’s dying words –– go, go, the Wolf House, go –– and an address stuffed in his hands by cold, lifeless ones that led him here, and upon arriving he had promptly collapsed only to wake up like this.With the glistening stars and the endless sky and the howling wolves.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so ya. i was reading a fanfic about a good octavian (sry, can't remember which one, i promise i didn't plagiarize), and then i was like, o ya, wats up with this octavian, and then i wrote this.
> 
> its a bit short, but seriously, there's not much to write about this guy, so vague in the book. basically it just says he's evil.
> 
> so i was like WHY is he evil? and ya, this fanfic basically describes that.

In the beginning, it was just him. Him and the stars and the wolves.

Waking up in the middle of the wolf house, Octavian had been introduced to a new life, a new world. He didn’t know. He never got to know anything. It was only his mother’s dying words –– go, go, the Wolf House, go –– and an address stuffed in his hands by cold, lifeless ones that led him here, and upon arriving he had promptly collapsed only to wake up like this.

With the glistening stars and the endless sky and the howling wolves.

Lupa and her pack trained him, just as they had trained others before him, but none other had trained this vigorously before, none had trained with such passion. Not once did the boy complain, not once did he shout in pain from the horrific wounds he attained daily or beg on his knees for five more minutes of precious sleep. And the one thing that drove him through all of this torture, that one thought that resounded through his head like a chant –– What if they don’t accept me? What if I’m not good enough?

The forever absence of his father and the early death of his mother led to Octavian fearing abandonment, and this fear would only grow as he grew older, enforced by the many betrayals and losses he would endure. Each night he was plagued with nightmarish thoughts of being cast aside, of being thrown out to live on the streets with the monsters. The monsters.

In the beginning, he didn’t know about the monsters. Didn’t know about them, until his mother got mauled by an animal that was not an animal.

But then again, he didn’t know anything until his new life started, and the little he did know from before didn’t matter any more. His life that had been painted with the bright colors of an innocent childhood was now a blank canvas, marred with a single red slash that spanned across its center, painted by the combined forces of his dead mother and the monster that killed her. Octavian sometimes blamed himself for her death; if only he had gotten there faster, done something heroic, he could have changed something, anything… But no,that was just wishful thinking; in reality he could not have, because his mother had willingly sacrificed herself, had thrown her body in front of her child's to shield him from the inevitable arc of a claw slicing downwards.

She traded her life for his.

And because of this, because she gave her life to protect his, Octavian learned to treasure the ones he loved and loved him back more than anything. When he joined the Legion, he devoted himself to his Cohort, to the friends he made, and quickly rose in rank, shooting up from the fifth to the First Cohort within the first few months. He was claimed, and a mark with the lyre of Apollo was seared into his skin, along with a single stroke –– his first year, a success. Octavian savoured the smell of burning flesh, would continue to afterwards; it was the scent of victory, the aroma that gave him hope. More strokes followed as he grew older, and soon he became a veteran in the Legion. It painted his life with hues of color, gold and silver streaked across with every accomplishment. He was so close to becoming praetor… And then. And then Jason came, the Golden Boy that ruined everything. Everyone followed him around, without any need for convincing, like dogs on a leash, just because his father was the biggest bully in the playground. Just because he was the son of Jupiter. Naturally, they chose to follow this perfect boy over Octavian, who had worked so hard, so damn hard, to gain his place among the other Romans.

He was bitter, would always be bitter, and that gave his canvas a dark tint. Bitter, because it had to be Jason the Perfect who stole his rightful place. Reyna was a good leader, worthy, but Jason? Nothing but a spoiled brat. Bitterness made him unlikeable, cruel even, and slowly even his closest friends started to drift away from him.

Except one.

Viria Reano, the brunette with eyes that shone to rival the sun, had not been his first friend, nor his closest, but she seemed to hate Jason Grace with a passion that could rival his own. And so mutual hate drew the two closer, until they became to sides of the same coin, two candles melted into one. She brought a pink hue to his life, and they had become… more than just friends. And then… and then the betrayal. Betrayal, when he found a drunk Viria and Jason making out. Betrayal, when he saw Viria smiling at the other blond, with adoration in both their eyes. Betrayal ripped the canvas of his life to shreds, barely kept together with pieces of broken tape.

And so Octavian swore he would never love again.

Of course, Jason took Viria as his girlfriend. Octavian could not be left behind, could not be less than Jason in anything, so once again he found another to be his companion, his lover. The girl he picked to stand by him was quiet, submissive. She did everything he told her to, never made spoke a word unless being spoken to, and so she slowly faded, faded into nothing but background noise. In fact, Octavian, when he thought about it years after, could barely remember her name. Was it Jenny? Maybe Janet? Or perhaps Jane? He didn’t know, didn’t care. She left him anyways afterwards, when he didn’t need her anymore, and he let her go. Apathy and resentment painted his life over with dull, lifeless colors. He didn’t care any more, never imagined a day he would.

But then. One day, he did stumble across love.

A love that could easily rival and exceed, that of Jason’s and all his affairs with different Roman girls, a love that tinted his world, his canvas, a soft pink color that seeped into every action. Wide, obsidian eyes framed with thick lashes, glistening to match the gleam of steady moonlight, captured him in the midst of a crowd, and neatly trimmed raven hair that accentuated the pale skin and small, cherry-red mouth called out to him in the light, beckoning, calling. It was cliché to the point where even Octavian himself laughed, and yet at the same time… well at the same time, Octavian, who loathed clichés to the utmost, didn’t care. Vivian Lu, daughter of Thanatos, a girl of mysteries that blended into the shadows and watched with a wary eyes, was the girl Octavian finally found love with. For once, just this once in a lifetime, he didn’t care, didn’t care about Jason or ranks or competition, didn’t care about monsters or gods, too spun up in his love life to give a damn. But Octavian, lost in the naïvety of love, failed to consider that the gods weren’t going to give him an easy life. They never gave anyone an easy life.

As August of 2009 approached, tensions grew. There were unsettling movements of Titans near Mount Othrys, and the threat grew more and more real as each day passed. Broken prophecies were announced, bits and pieces, with disturbing messages, lines such as, Saturn’s throne shall fall apart, torn to pieces by a broken heart, and, All efforts made shall be made in vain, in the end, all will fall to pain. The words “broken heart” and “pain” especially jumped out at Octavian, and though he tried to ignore it, he knew that prophecies, more often than not, referred to the augur specifically, unless otherwise notified or brought to them by a god himself. As always, and as predicted, Jason led the Roman Legions. Octavian was nothing but a leader of the first cohort, not that he cared much. They stormed the palace on Mount Othrys, successfully, with limited casualties.

Of course, after that, everything went to hell.

Octavian, he didn’t really know how it happened. All he knew was one minute Vivian had been fighting next to him, the next she was on the ground, a spear through her stomach, a thin line of blood bubbling up near the corner of her mouth, eyes glassy and staring up, up, up, into the void without actually seeing. And it was that moment, that very moment, that everything stopped, everything froze, because the daughter of death was dead herself, and her father had come to claim her. Thanatos, who had taken neither side war, drifted in a downwards descent in all his godly glory, towards the body of his deceased daughter, the body of a girl who had once brought joy to so many. Now she had taken all the joy she brought away into the afterlife, all those emotions by a thousand-fold snatched away forever. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that Octavian could do, just watch as the corpse of a girl he once loved rose into the sky, carried in the arms of death, both figuratively and literally, along with it bringing his own soul into the Underworld as well. He was glad that everyone had stopped, because if they had not he would have been caught in the crossfire. Or maybe that would have been better, he had thought bitterly afterwards, numb with pain, though he had only received a small scratch across his wrist, a scratch that mocked him: She’s dead, dead, gone, nothing, and you, you despicable being, escaped with nothing but a scratch, she should be the one alive, you should be dead in place of her… And there was nothing he could do to comfort himself, because yes, it was his fault, yes, he did deserve to die, yes, if only he had been faster, smarter, more attentive, she would have survived. Jason toppled the throne of Saturn, but at this point that was only a distant thought in his head, reflexive, a twinge of jealousy. The only fleeting thought he managed to grasp was Saturn’s throne shall fall apart, torn to pieces by a broken heart, torn to pieces by a broken heart, torn to pieces by a broken heart… He laughed bitterly, because the two parts had been completely separate, non-correspondant. And then he realised Viria was nowhere to be seen, and then he realised, so that’s was the prophecy meant, and then he thought, so Vivian’s death didn't even match Viria’s in magnitude, and that’s when the remaining sane part of his mind left his body.

Octavian was never quite the same again after the battle.

Later, during the last chapter of his life, just before he catapulted himself into Gaea, he thought, I’m coming, I’ll join you, I’ll see you again, Vivian. His life that had once been painted with triumphant golds and silvers, meaningless browns and greys, angry slashes of reds and blacks, then torn to pieces along with his heart, his life was now a blank canvas, born anew. He would redeem himself, he decided then, he had been given a chance, a new start, he would make everything right again. He was untethered now, unaffected by the gods, unaffected at the monsters, unaffected by the three demigods that were staring at him in horror.

The world let go of him.

And so he let go of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> plz plz comment, i need opinions on if it's good or bad cause if i ask my sis she's just gonna laugh at me and be like
> 
> seriously sophie? this is what u write in ur free time?
> 
> so ya. comments are HIGHLY appreciated.


End file.
